Building Life: The Science of Lab-Grown Organs

According to the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, in 2010, scientist Donald Ingber pioneered the first-ever 3D organ-on-a-chip. This model mimicked the tissues of a lung and was used as a preclinical in vitro model (the growing of cells in a lab) to discover new potential treatments for pandemic respiratory viruses. It was initially tested against drugs used for the treatment of influenza, a viral infection. 

Of course, the chip and actual lung cells differ in multiple ways. The chip, or the “human airway chip,” is a microfluidic device containing two parallel microchannels separated by an extracellular matrix–coated porous membrane. The lung cells themselves are laid out on a thin, see-through layer. On one side of this layer, actual lung airway cells grow in air, similar to how lungs are exposed to air. On the other side, blood vessel cells grow, while liquid flows past them to simulate how blood flows in the body. This setup helps mimic how real lungs work. 

While the human airway chip models how lungs work, scientists are also developing fully functional organs that can be transplanted into real bodies. This field is known as tissue engineering. Tissue engineering is a branch of biomedical engineering that uses a combination of cell engineering and suitable biochemical factors to restore, maintain, improve, or replace different types of biological tissue. Tissue engineering often involves the use of cells placed on a tissue scaffold. 

These two amazing discoveries happened some time ago, but doctors and scientists have continued to make breakthroughs. For example, in 2025, Stanford scientists solved a key problem in keeping organoids, lab-grown clusters of cells that resemble human organs, alive. These mini brains and hearts allow scientists to investigate human disease processes and drug therapies. A major challenge had been the lack of blood

vessels, which limited their growth. But soon after, scientists created heart organoids with branching blood vessels. This breakthrough opened possibilities for future medical developments, such as personalized drug discovery, according to Joseph Wu, professor and director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and co-founder of Greenstone Biosciences.